The Principle Of Rahma رحمه

Philosophies, doctrines, dogma, ideologies, call them what you may, are all ex machina, plot devices, different from other species of ideas in that we're susceptible to them, to the ease with which they can automate us or turn us into automata. In Jung’s language, they’re the type of ideas which have us.

They have this special power of turning the what into an ought, they elicit, oblige, suggest, incentivize etc, and like language prepositions, cover every angle of intellectual being.

Where the original state is uncertainty, confusion, and indecisiveness, such ideas descend upon us to inform us of our reality, carving out the Appian way, through which all uncertainty, even the Socratic kind that’s conducive to learning is traversed. Dogma or ideologies, whatever they preach are indispensable to human existence and valuable, but their value lies not in what they specifically preach, to be exact, but in filling out a certain vacuum. They are remedial to a state which Heidegger calls ‘anxiety’, which he holds to be a fundamental mood that reveals the nature of our existence, that arises when we confront the uncertainty and finitude of our own being. the most urgent of human needs is certainty, so much so that there's no length that we're not willing to go to attain it, it matters less if what we're certain about is true or not, certainty somehow seems to transcend that, truth after all, and in most cases, whatever the status quo decides, whatever the majority subscribes to.

Even in the Quran, confusion, loss, uncertainty, and falsehood, are held to be the default state, the norm, and being guided and properly oriented and certain, as exceptions, many of the major prophets, Abraham, Moses, Mohammad, and other had had an anxious start. Thus among God’s many names, we find Alraheem (الرحيم) which directly captures acts by God that effect changes in the world along the lines of giving form where form is lacking, orienting that which is disoriented (or unoriented); this applies to everything, (Our Lord! You encompass everything in ˹Your˺ mercy [Rahma رحمه] and knowledge--Ghafir 40:7), it spans the processes of nature as well as internal (and ‘private’) human affairs. The rainwater that stimulates the seed and causes it to grow, is an expression of this principle, inasmuch as instances of forgiveness, salvation, and grace are to those needful of them. It’s one and the same principle that’s operative in both cases.

Call it ‘correction’ or ‘rehabilitation’.

Rahma, as a divine model of action directly accrues from conditions of shortage, despair, loss etc., and what states other than these does the universe appear to be perpetually thrown into. In this regard, does not the quality ‘Raheem’ exist in virtue of these? Though they are the norm, statistically speaking, do we not somehow feel that they shouldn't be, that they are not, the norm. Thus, logically speaking, the state of the world, its inherent dependence, its volatility, its susceptibility to degradation in itself testify and presuppose this divine principle. They are the background against which the principle asserts itself but with a notable condition..

Rahma takes into consideration the nature of that whose object it is, the rain which irrigates the seeds is considered an act of Rahma in that the vehicle of providence [water] is expedient to its recipient, the seed, as the motive here is that the seed shall grow into a tree that shades and feeds, what else may be considered ‘crucial’ to such a thing as a ‘seed’, what is a seed in need of the most if not ‘water’? What would it be without it?

Rahma is particularly operative in contexts such as these, being the subject of Rahma means that you’d been the recipient of that which you needed most (key word here is needed). It’s to be understood as a kind of ‘ex machina’, a plot device’ or ‘plot armor’; meaningful only when understood as a part of the logic of destiny which forms the kernel of faith, and of Quranic cosmology, whereby the universe, and all that which it contains, is depicted as in a state of motion, not the Cartesian kind, but motion towards a destination, teleology, Aristotle’s.

Each and every living thing has a cosmic destiny that’s set up for it to reach, to fulfill the role and purpose for which it was formally created.

It’s here where the concept of Rahma is most relevant, any divine action that aids a living being in its movement towards said destination falls within its domain. God is engaged in this act by the very fact that every day he effects in the world changes which, with respect to their recipients, are ‘life-altering’, rehabilitative, sustaining, and elevating. Thus we differentiate between providence and that to which providence is expedient. Providence is ‘nurturing’, ‘invigorating’, but Rahma, which subsumes providence, is ‘rehabilitative’, ‘orienting’, an act only surpassed in its magnitude, by the act of creation itself.

Since the universe and the life forms contained in it are not all the same; and that there are hierarchies of being, different modes of subsistence, different climates and topologies, biological as well as geological, circumstances and forms of dependency below what are faculties can detect (and intellectual/spiritual challenges of various kinds) Rahma, must indeed cover all of it; the mere persistence of these forms as well as the conditions that produced them are both subjects of Rahma; the disease and the disease-ridden, the predator and the prey, the darkness as well as the light--insofar as they are meaningful and/or give things which are not themselves, meaning circumstantially or ontologically--are patients of Rahma.

We think of Rahma as grace, and grace as something that is exclusive to human beings, healing after sickness, stability after chaos, guidance after loss, strength after weakness, etc.., those, exemplary instances of Rahma though they be, are known to manifest themselves in the opposite order, in the strangest of ways, often in a contradictory sense to what we’re accustomed or expect them to appear, Rahma may at first seem like its ‘divesting us’, like it’s taking away from us rather than giving us, annihilating us rather than ‘sustaining’ us, But that’s only because, it answers to what’s necessary rather than, what’s convenient, and necessity, as we know, heeds only what’s reasonable, those reasonably sufficient means that are to produce the outcome sought in the most efficient way possible, ‘blessing in disguise’ is the expression that’s often used.

The least favorable situation may prove to be the most remedial, the most necessary, and ‘most necessary’ is precisely what Rahma prioritizes. There are other ways of ‘solving’ problem X, of reversing a crisis, but why this, why this way and not another? Rahma here seems to demand another principle, Hekma (Hakeem), which we discussed in a previous video, it’s usually interpreted as wisdom, but it’s best understood as the analog to Leibniz’s principle of sufficient reason. As he formulates it in the Monadology

31. Our reasonings are based on two great principles, that of contradiction, in virtue of which we judge that which involves a contradiction to be false, and that which is opposed or contradictory to the false to be true.

32. And that of sufficient reason, by virtue of which we consider that we can find no true or existent fact [fait], no true assertion [énonciation véritable], without there being a sufficient reason why it is thus and not otherwise, although most of the time these reasons cannot be known to us. (G VI, 612/L 646)

The first of these can be understood as the opposite of the situation in which we find ourselves before receiving Rahm, the situation, the difficulty, the hardship automatically induces desire towards its opposite; coldness for example, evinces warmth, darkness, the light, ignorance, knowledge and so on, this complex order of inexorable opposites as Jung calls it (Man & His Symbols p85), permeate the whole of being, there’s not a situation, a concept, a thing that’s uncontradicted, in fact, things accrue their meaning from their opposites, a case like light and darkness, wet and dry, are merely the purest form in which this principle of contradiction expresses itself, hence why they’re so easy to point out, but in more complex conditions, this ‘opposition’ is much harder to point out, but nevertheless exist, but when we're trying to we call them 'causes' or ' effects. As plato explains

"Not stimulating, namely, is that which does not pass into an opposite perception; stimulating objects I call those which give opposite perceptions, because here perception gives no more vivid idea of any particular object than of its opposite. Much in percept ion is a paraclete of thought, while other perceptions are not — such an awakener of thought, namely, comes into sense at the same time as its opposite” (Republic 523-524).

Take verse 9 of chapter 27, God introduces himself to Moses as ‘Hakeem’, why is that?, why not use any other term or combination of terms?. The answer is that the statement is meant to inform Moses that the meeting is not a fluke, that all that which Moses went through, as well as all that which is to follow from that point is accords with a carefully constructed plan,

As he shortly answers him

On the other hand, Verse 40 of chapter 29 justifies this particular situation by way of another principle ‘Qadeer’, which actually includes ‘hakeem’ within it; expressing’ ‘sufficient reason’, for example, that a liquid should take the form of its container, or that such and such object has such and such speed, and conform with such and such laws of motion are all examples of Qadar, and Qadar, we may say, is related to Hekma insofar as what arises as an effect or a result, is directly proportionate to some cause, this ‘cause’ is its opposite, and it’s this functional opposition that caused the thing in question to appear, and what, by extension renders phenomena cognitable.

Thus an action warrants the principle ‘Hakeem’ as its antecedent, when some degree of sufficiency is harnessed in virtue of which a certain outcome is attained, an action which we we call sufficient, must share to the intended result an objectivity as requisite and necessary as that which is said to be shared between darkness and light, wet and dry, etc.., only here do we attain the ‘efficacy’ needed to render attainable the object of which action is the cause. We call a relation, an outcome ‘Qadar’ to express the consistency with which the details lead to it, for example, verse 259 of chapter 2, where the principle ‘Qadeer’ is invoked right after a detailed account of resurrection was given.

This is clearly intended to direct our attention specifically towards the form of necessary connection which culminates into the concept in question, or, the necessity with which A causes or leads to B. Here is revealed the relation between Qadeer and Hakeem as pertains to Moses, when conveying an overall ‘intention’ and reason, to say that a certain event is not ‘an accident’ but is strategic and, as it were, logical’, he uses Hakeem’, but in substantiating the statement, in providing the justification for it, an account of cause and effect is supplemented, of A, having caused, B which then caused C, which was the right condition from which to produce D, here deploys the expression Qadeer.

This may be expanded by recourse to the term Qarya

The term ‘Qarya’ translated here into ‘town’, means more than that, we use town here sparingly as the scope of word covers all complex forms of human society. It constitutes what in Toynbee’s ‘Study Of History’ is called a ‘unit of analysis’, as in the Qarya are present those dependencies that form what we may call a cohesive society. By complexity, we mean such society wherein exists ‘organs’, rules and regulations, historical depth, and a horizon--possibilities of expansion, economy, politics, trade, culture etc.., you’ll find that not all societies fulfill these conditions though they may possess them in an approximate form. The significance of the Qadeer is hereby deepend by this explanation, as here we’re directed towards ‘details’; ‘intricacies’ which the ‘simplistic’ vehicle in which those concepts (e. Qarya) are wrapped would have us overlook. The ‘complexity’ of Qarya is owing to the term Arsh (عروشها; عرش) used in the first line of the verse; the best way to explain this is the phrase ‘catch 22’

“a problematic situation for which the only solution is denied by a circumstance inherent in the problem or by a rule the show-business catch-22—no work unless you have an agent, no agent unless you've worked—Mary Murphy”

This is the basic condition which, if fulfilled by a community, immediately warrants it the term ‘Qaray’, note how intricately woven are the laws and the organs of our society, how a problem afflicting one field would ripple across all others, how, for instance, a society’s stability may hinge on the export or import of a particular commodity, note also, how in writing laws all those different fields must be taken into account, that there must exist strategies and mechanisms in place to fill out existing loopholes or anticipate possible ones and contradictions which if exploited, with the wrong intentions, would jeopardize the law and by extension, the common good, or the common good from the eyes of those in power.

We read how God destroyed Pharoah’s whole ‘establishment’ (as translated), where ‘establishment’ refers to the ‘machinations’ involved in the process of, if you will, ‘social construction’. After all, God describes Pharoah as ‘Thu al’awtad’, inflections of this term are many ‘Wady’ ‘Awdeya’, even one of God’s names ‘AlWadood’, all appear to express a single truth’, which can be summed up in the term ‘prospect’ or ‘vision’, a wad is a place you look upon--an immediate horizon, wadood, is someone whose ‘optimistic’, Thul awtat is someone with high prospects for something, it’s that act of projecting into the future a favorable scenario or possibility. Pharaoh had the power and means to ‘expand’ his civilization, as he no doubt was in the process of doing…hence the verse

ۖ وَدَمَّرْنَا مَا كَانَ يَصْنَعُ فِرْعَوْنُ وَقَوْمُهُۥ وَمَا كَانُوا۟ يَعْرِشُونَ ١٣٧

And We destroyed what Pharaoh and his people constructed and what they established.

A society, in this context, may be called an ‘engine’, hence Solomon’s request that one of the members of his cabinet bring him the ‘Arsh’ or throne of the kingdom which he was then at odds with. This throne’ is her ‘governing apparatus’, an engine. This so-called throne is not physical, anymore than ‘energy’, the prime engine which runs our modern civilization is physical. It’s rather the ‘systems built around’ them, the ideal infrastructure, based on a certain resource, and which makes such a society possible, and to which is owed those legal and constitutional intricacies, and in protection of which whole armies are raised, funded and stationed, and for the sake of which, one society may invade another, as Solomon clearly intended. If understood by analogy to, or simply as ‘engine’, then we may just begin to approximate the actual meaning of the term Arsh, an engine is nothing in itself but the activity which it makes possible, something which automates a particular set of properties.

God tells us that his ‘Throne’ sets on water, which we understand in connection with the verse

وَكَانَ عَرْشُهُۥ عَلَى ٱلْمَآءِ

and His Throne was upon the waters

وَجَعَلْنَا مِنَ ٱلْمَآءِ كُلَّ شَىْءٍ حَىٍّ ۖ

And We created from water every living thing

Here, we’re told that water, on which every living thing subsists and depends, is God's chief resource, “if there were Other Gods besides

قُل لَّوْ كَانَ مَعَهُۥٓ ءَالِهَةٌۭ كَمَا يَقُولُونَ إِذًۭا لَّٱبْتَغَوْا۟ إِلَىٰ ذِى ٱلْعَرْشِ سَبِيلًۭا

Say, ˹O Prophet,˺ “Had there been other gods besides Him—as they claim—then they would have certainly sought a way to the Lord of the Throne.”

Which says that only he who has power and command over the apparatus which governs our universe, the physical and metaphysical, and all that which spawns from them can truly be called a God, and which renders all other claimants of divinity ‘fakes’, not that any proof is ever needed, which calls to mind Abraham’s challenge to one such claimant, ‘God brings the sun from the east, go ahead a bring it from the west’, saying that the constants of our universe are things over whose natural course only he who has the throne can ‘alter’, hence the term ‘thy Alarsh’ a term which the definite article epitomizes could never, in its quintessential form be ascribed to someone other than he.

The concepts of Arsh and Qarya, are thus inseparable, Qarya is the microcosm whose constitutive relations emulate the true, all-encompassing one. Qaray is a construct which runs on an engine ‘Arsh’, and whose machinery is based on one resource or a group of them.

The principles of Rahma, Hekma, Qadar, ‘Razaq’ are meaningless if not understood with a clear eye on the concept of Arsh, because divine ‘essences’ such as ‘truth’, ‘mercy’, ‘wisdom’, ‘grace’, ‘love’ etc.. are essentially ‘providential’, and providence is the whole logic of Arsh, we exist, but our existence is volatile and dependent, not only as far as sustenance, but intellectually and emotionally, Rahma has a way of transmuting the basic bodily dimension which providence is commonly thought to govern, and extending it into other, less physically dependent dimensions of being, dimensions which sustenance, where not an issue, frees the body up to do,

And since, as this example makes clear, the less dependent we are on certain conditions, the fewer ‘essentials’ we have, the freer we are to pursue higher means, in the same vain, at every level of being as we ascend higher and higher, from no longer having to hunt, to work the land, or even to work certain occupations which may in the future be fully automated, we encounter challenges at every level of being, challenges proportionate and appropriate to the level at which they persist, challenges which make both poor and rich equal. Rahma, if it’s to be valid, if it’s to be truly divine, must not lose demand, must remain eternally valid, such that it will never be, not needed, because need is what existence is built upon, what it is in itself.